2w ago

How many times a day do you feed your cat

Hi all, I'm kind of confused on this. My cat eats very slowly all day long. She'd go to her food bowl constantly throughout the day for a couple of bites and then back to whatever she does. I think we spoil her by making her food available at all times, my wife doesn't think so. She throws up here and there and I'm thinking because she eats too much. So, my question to you all is, how often do you feed your cat? Do you fill its bowl all day like me? Do you have specific times of the day where you give them a certain amount each time and nothing in between? I'm leaning towards doing the latter. Give her, let's say, half a cup in the morning and let her munch on it as much as she wants and the other half in the evening and nothing in between. She freaks out when her bowl is empty and starts crying and acting like she's about to die of starvation. Give her food, then she takes one bite and leaves. Bro, wtf. Lol. So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

41 comments

Some cats have better control than others. I can't give mine food for the entire day as one will just gobble everything up until she pukes.
So they get fed three times a day. Basically their daily food intake distributed in equal portions throughout the day.
She throws up here and there
How often is here and there? It might be an underlying health issue if this happens a lot.
- Probably once a week? Every 10 days? I checked it and there was no worms because I was worried about that. It was watery, though. She seems very much fine to me. Still plays and does her thing. Also, she's a 9 year old cat. That can be a factor, too.
  Edit: she's also one of those that shed a ton of hair. Her shedding is just insane.
  
  A few times a month is not out of the ordinary. As long as she has access to fresh water she might just be a bit dramatic!
  If you suspect anything, getting her checked out at the vet is still recommended. Cats are experts at hiding illnesses, so it's hard to gauge how they are feeling.
  Aside from that, I don't think you need to change anything if nothing is out of the ordinary. Some cats are drama queens, just the way it is.

I've always kept a bowl of watsr and dry food filled and then given them wet food once a day.
Never had any issues with them throwing up. Hopefully, someone else can provide insight into that.
- Thank you. My wife has been giving her tuna twice a day and I stopped it because the money adds up if we are giving her a whole can a day. I get her organic dry food from Costco that is chicken and sweet potatoes, so I don't see a point of spending more money on tuna. Not sure if that's the cause of throwing up, or because she just eats too much. It's fucking disgusting, btw. 😂
  
  What kind of tuna are you feeding them? If it's the human-consumption-type (i.e. StarKist) then the sodium content is way too high.
  
  A can a day seems a bit much to me. We did half a can a day for 15lb cat (not fat, just big).
  You can probably eliminate the wet food entirely if you pour extra "juice" from your meals onto the dry food.

It might differ depending on the cat’s personality, but I feed my cat a full serving once a day in the morning, and that’s it. He nibbles on it throughout the day whenever he wants, and by the next morning the bowl is empty. No whining or begging, thankfully, since he does a surprisingly good job of pacing himself.
He’s pretty old now, so we’ve got a good routine going, but I know some cats just won’t accept this and need their meals to be separate and eaten in one sitting.
- Thank you. By full serving, what do you mean? Do you have a measurement or just a random cup you have at home that you use?
  
  It took a few years to fine-tune the exact amount, sometimes he’d finish the bowl too early and whine the next morning, sometimes there’d be too much leftover and he’d whine because he wanted a fresh bowl. I finally landed on the exact amount where he always has enough when he wants it, but there’s never any extra. It’s second nature by now so I don’t remember the exact amount, but it’s somewhere just over half a cup of dry food.

my cat rules so I just have a huge gravity feeder with dry food available to her constantly and I give her one wet food a day. I refill the gravity feeder once every two weeks or so, whenever it’s empty
She’s been 14.7 pounds for 10 years straight.
My sisters cat is greeeeeedy and has to be restricted or she will eat constantly and end up massively overweight. She was like 5-6 lbs overweight when she got her. Not sure of the specific schedule she uses
So I guess it depends?

We have two cats from the same litter. We use an automated cat feeder that pours enough for each of them (same bowl) 4 times a day. They’re pretty good about portioning and making sure they’re able to eat together. They hardly ever throw up (1-2 times a year). They don’t act hungry, but they do rush from anywhere in the house when they hear the food dispensing. Each cat weighs 13 lbs.

All times. Our cats graze well and don't have weight issues.
Our dogs, however, twice a day for Señores Chonk and Chonk También.

Twice a day, 12 hours apart. No free feeding (they always end up engorging themselves and throwing up when i make the mistake of leaving it out)
Water is always available and they alert me when it needs to be refilled

Feed them twice. Once in the morning around 8 then again at 8 when I get home from work.
1 cat is an absolute fiend for food and will eat his sisters (not related)
Have to separate them until she is finished then he gets her leftovers. He'll yell on the other end of the door
If I left food he'd make himself sick, think due to being feral for a while. Other cat could give a fuck lol
No vomiting here with my cats. Will parrot how it seems to be unique to the cat.
- We got bowls that only open for the cat with the right chip. That way little miss slow eater can take her time.

My cat is good and eats only what she needs. She always has a bowl full of her regular food. We've been like this for almost 10 years now.
It all kind of depends on the cat and how they handle the buffet always being open.

Twice a day wet food, but he also has bowl of kibble available throughout the day to snack on. My friend recommended it when we got the first cat, and it has worked for us.
Sometimes he'll eat all the wet food, sometimes he'll leave it for later, and sometimes there will be leftovers until evening / morning that he will refuse to eat. We're not consistent with portion sizes though, so maybe sometimes we give him too much.
He does like the kibble though and he's happy eating it even of there's wet food available.

My old cat used to eat only what she needed throughout the day. Only dry food.
My new kitties are trash cans. Everything eatable goes in. I feed them twice a day, dry food, only the recommended amount as stated on the food package and as recommended by the vet.
The vet said it's easier to keep them at a decent weight then to have to put them on a diet.
When your cat eats whenever she wants food, I think you should be fine with feeding her once a day. But make sure you only feed her enough for her weight and age. The website of the food brand should list a recommended amount, otherwise ask your vet.
When she's an adult (1 year and older or 6 months and older when castrated) it's recommended to feed her adult food, only dry food, it's better for their teeth.
Never feed your cat milk, cats are lactose intolerant.
When she throws up on a daily basis, go to a vet. This isn't normal, she might be ill. Make sure you have cat grass for her, they need grass to help throw up, when they have a hairball for instance. Always make sure she has fresh water access.
Make sure your cat won't become obese. Animal obesity is animal abuse. Next to them having a terrible life, they will get sick much faster and their life much shorter, which is not only sad, also expensive.

We had one cat and she was fine to free feed like that, occasional puke but that was mostly hairballs or if she ate something like plastic (she loves eating tape, you cannot leave tape out or she will eat it)
Then we a kitten and the older one started eating the kittens food. The kitten got bigger and started stealing her food… then they started wolfing down food so quickly they’d puke to try and steal from each other.
So we ended up with 2 machines across the house on the same schedule, and feed them three times a day. They will free feed if separated.

I've always had cats in the house, even as a kid. Our family has pretty much always followed the "They get breakfast when we get breakfast, and dinner at dinner time" so that's when they get a portion of "wet" food, with dry/crunchy available to "free feed" on throughout the day if they get snackish as well as a few different sources of water.
While that can lead to cats being overweight, we generally let the cats outdoors or now more recently, give them free reign of the house and attached garage. The garage is basically just a building shell, so critters like rodents and birds can still come in which in turn gives the cats something to do and keeps them active which is the key. As long as they're burning off the extra calories and maintaining a healthy weight, the "how" becomes somewhat irrelevant.
The general advice that seems to be prevalent though is to intentionally restrict their diets a bit to keep them at a healthy weight. So the "free feed" idea may not be the best advice.
- That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. She's a 100% indoor cat. Also, she's older now, 9 years old. So, I guess it's good that I'm trying not to free feed her all day so she can be healthy. She IS overweight for sure.

Mine has some food control issues so I feed them 2-3 times a day wet food. Free fed or not she vomits every now and then, pretty sure cats just puke because I’ve never had one that doesn’t a few times a year. She cries if I forget to feed but other than the transition from free feeding she got used to the schedule in a few weeks.

We leave dry food 24/7 and split a can of wet food between the two once a day. The shorthair eats a bit of that and walks away. The Maine-coon, being adapted for colder climates, finishes both plates. She’s slightly overweight, but healthy.

I give my cat (an adult female, about 10yo) two pouches of wet food a day, plus keeping a dry food bowl topped up (i.e. enough that the bottom isn’t visible). She sometimes eats the lot, and sometimes leaves up to a third of a serving, which is then discarded.

We have two very different cats.
#1 is fed two wet pouches a day and as much dry food as he pleases. Weight is healthy and stable. Though he does beg loudly in-between meals.
#2 exclusively eats dry food and will not touch wet. Probably a good thing, as she is overweight and now on a diet. Doesn't beg so much, but will take any opportunity to eat if given.
Water always available, but #2 prefers moving water.
The people of the house both work full time, so meals tend to be twice a day - morning and evening.

I had a cat who would throw up frequently. He would just gorge himself when he was fed, and any "extra" would end up on the floor. He was a BIG BOY.
My current cats don't seem to do that at all. I wonder if it was because he was rescued from a hoarder who had dozens of other cats in the house. Maybe he learned it through trauma. 🤷🏻‍♂️
- Obligatory cat tax of the ol' chonk. Miss you, Peekaboo!
  
  I love it. I've never owned a male cat, I just realized that.
- Sounds like a trauma/ptsd. I had a rescue cat who did that. It was like she was always in a race when eating. It was very funny how quickly she would duzzle her food even though it was just her there. lol

Our cats have always been fed raw and they get fed twice a day. One of our cats, the vet said he was "the most beautiful specimen I ever seen". He's just a basic tabby (rescue) but does indeed have the most glorious fur. Our failed foster's pervious owner fed her an expensive fancy diet but kibble and we thought she had coarse fur. After months with us on raw, she also has gloriously soft fur and what we thought was psychological urination issues also cleared up.

All cats I've had have been lucky enough that free feeding is an option and they don't gorge. So we just fill the bowl up when it's empty, and water is kept fresh everyday. Thinking of getting a running water fountain to encourage more liquids though.

Luckily the 2 cats I live with right now are free feeders. They WILL let you know if they can see any part of the bottom of their food bowl or if their water is empty or has a speck of fluff in it, but other than that they are very chill cats in terms of feeding.
My mom's cats growing up were basically raised as dogs so they would beg and pull human food off the table if you aren't looking. Any open glass of liquid would immediately have a cat paw inside it the microsecond you turned around. They would also eat the dog food and chew on the plants. Real shitheads. But we loved em.

3oz of wet food every 12 hours, two of the cats get unlimited dry, one can't be trusted so we put some in every once in a while, maybe twice a day

RTFM.
Look on the food bag. It will have a guide for how much to feed a cat of various sizes. Feed the appropriate amount. No more, no less.

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